After there's been zero word on the next mainline Sonic the Hedgehog game, Sonic Team lead Takashi Iizuka says there are more surprises in store for the series 35th anniversary.

Sonic the Hedgehog is pretty constant as of late, whether it be remaster, spinoff or main series game, the series has effectively been a yearly release for a while now. However, it's been a while since the series' last 3D entry with 2022's Sonic Frontiers, and fans have been feverishly waiting for what's coming next for the series – especially in the wake of the fairly divisive Sonic Superstars in 2023. But aside from a second wave of DLC for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and the collab game between Sonic and indie hit Pico Park, things have been quiet throughout Sonic's 35th anniversary year.

Speaking to Pocket Tactics, Iizuka was asked what we can expect from the series' anniversary celebrations. He responds "We want the 35th anniversary to recognize every part of Sonic's history while also looking ahead" in reference to the likes of Sonic in Concert, he adds, "Throughout the year, fans will see Sonic through games, music, events, collaborations, merchandise, and other special projects."

Iizuka then promises more surprises on top of what has already been announced, saying "other surprises will need to remain secret for a little longer. I know that Sonic fans are extremely observant, so I must be careful not to provide any unintended clues!" He adds "We hope there will be something that appeals to fans from every era."

Sega did tease what would become Frontiers at the end of a 30th anniversary stream, before it was fully revealed at The Game Awards 2021, so if Sega are set on revealing what's next for Sonic this year, maybe keep an eye on Keighley's show this year.

Sonic Team boss says the most memorable game he's ever worked on is Sonic Adventure 2, and he was "really delighted" its story was used for the third movie

Nintendo patron saint Shigeru Miyamoto created the Mario franchise, but he knows it would be nothing without the countless devs and designers who helped bring it to life. The original Super Mario Bros. platformer from 1985 would have especially suffered, Miyamoto thinks, had it been the responsibility of only one person.

Nintendo Everything shares an interview Miyamoto did with Japanese magazine Casa Brutus earlier this summer. The director reveals that many of the game's most beloved qualities came from simply bouncing ideas around in the office.

The B-dash, which lets you press B while Mario is sprinting to slip past gaps in terrain, is one example. The plumber with a mustache – the walrus 'stache that launched a thousand ships – wouldn't be able to perform "that small cheat," says Miyamoto, if it weren't for a collaborative discussion about game bugs.

"That was actually a bug caused by flawed collision detection with the ground," Miyamoto explains. "When the programmer noticed it, he said, 'Huh? He didn't fall!' and tried to fix it. But I said, 'No, no! It's fun if he can dash across – let's leave it as is!' [laughs]. So we kept it."

"There were tons of other fun techniques and hidden items born while developing Super Mario Bros.," Miyamoto continues. The bloated Cheep Cheep enemies, in particular, are an aspect of the platformer where, Miyamoto says, "I don't think I could have come up with it alone."

Designer Takashi Tezuka, who recently announced his retirement as Nintendo's executive officer, first thought of the bite-y pufferfish. "He was young then, and didn't yet have strong technical skills," says Miyamoto, "but he offered interesting ideas, like wanting to have a fish that suddenly leaps out and plops back down, that could both fly and swim."

"My younger colleague's idea had a certain appeal, and I wanted to accommodate it," says Miyamoto. So he decided to raise the floor's height in Super Mario Bros. to make it easier for Mario to dodge the Cheep Cheeps while retaining their status as pesky, red surprises.

"If Mario is running on the lowest level they’ll appear unexpectedly, but if he’s on a some- what higher platform, players can see the fish fly up. That's why World 2-3, where Cheep Cheeps appear, takes place on higher piers," Miyamoto explains.

"None of these things could have been done by one person alone. I believe it’s because we created it together, by discussion and argument as a team, that the game came about. I always want information to flow back and forth freely, so I even banned headphones in the office."

He continues, "Rather than divide work strictly by specialty, we all helped shape the whole game together, and the fun was in doing that. Even now, I still work with people from that team: the graphic artist I just cited, Mr. Tezuka, programmer Toshihiko Nakago, and composer Koji Kondo. I think that in itself is pretty amazing."

97 Super Mario Bros NES cartridges set to be "melted down" turn out to be a lot more valuable than the gold they contain.

Shigeru Miyamoto has revealed that one of the most integral parts of Mario's kit in the series' 2D games started out as an accident.

As much as Sonic is marketed as the fastest thing alive, and everyone's go-to when you think of speed in 2D platformers, it's easy to forget that the chubby Italian-American plumber from Brooklyn is weirdly fast too. And not just in the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games artwork – where Nintendo reportedly "demanded" Mario was a step in front of the blue blur – but he's able to speed through levels and even run over small gaps that are roughly the same size as him with no issue.

Turns out, his airwalking abilities weren't a part of the plan, as speaking to Casa Brutus magazine (via NintendoEverything), Miyamoto explains, "You know Mario’s B-Dash, right? If you hold the B button while running, he can cross small gaps without failing," he reveals, "Truth be told, that was actually a bug caused by flawed collision detection with the ground."

However, rather than purge the unintended power, Miyamoto recalls, "I said, 'No, no! It’s fun if he can dash across – let’s leave it as is!'" And now, 40 years later, Mario can still do the same in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, and every other 2D platformer the series has to offer.

Miyamoto also noted that this wasn't the only unintended feature of Super Mario Bros., with the hidden blocks that have remained an iconic part of the series since its inception, beginning their life as a bug where coins would appear in midair when nothing was there.

This isn't even the biggest glitch-turned-feature story either. Some glitches became part of their series, like Hitman's homing briefcase or the myth about a hyper-aggressive Gandhi in Civilization, which led to him being nuke-happy in its fifth entry.

However, none are as massive as Street Fighter 2, which featured an unintentional behavior where players could hit an opponent while they were still stunned, leading to the birth of combos in fighting games. So really, if it's a glitch and it doesn't break the game too much, it may be worth leaving it alone if it's fun enough.

97 Super Mario Bros NES cartridges set to be "melted down" turn out to be a lot more valuable than the gold they contain

Big Hops, the extraordinarily cute indie platformer that released this year to widespread acclaim, now lets you hop, hop around with up to seven of your best amphibious friends.

In case you haven't heard of Big Hops, you probably should, because there's a lot of stressful, awful things happening in the world and, like, none of them are happening in Big Hops. No, instead of AI and layoffs and war, Big Hops is all about tip-toeing around carefully... just kidding!

Big Hops is about tongue-grappling and air-diving and being shot out of cannons while traversing mountains, sweeping deserts, and perilous oceans. That's right, you get what it says on the box with Big Hops. And now the title is even more accurate: Big Hops implies all of the hops, so many hops, and now that plural tense extends to your pals as well, as Big Hops 8-player co-op is in open beta on Steam.

There does seem to be one fairly major caveat to co-op Big Hops, in that it'll only be available on Steam at launch, leaving PS5 and Switch 2 players to bounce around by themselves, which seems a little unfair. Director Chris Wade tells Kotaku that's because it's "easier to focus" on just one platform.

Otherwise, Wade, under the banner of Luckshot Games, promises the full experience with Big Hops co-op. "Up to 8 players can play together through the whole game," reads a Steam update. "There are no concessions here, no single-player only content, no half baked version of the game you know and love. It's all there to play together."

Big Hops Together, as the co-op mode is called, will fully launch on Steam on August 9, but you can try out multiplayer now by installing Big Hops if you haven't already and launching the game via the public 'Together' branch.

Here are all of the upcoming indie games we can't wait to play.

It's the dream scenario for a retro collector: finding an overlooked box of games and cracking it open to discover something absolutely unprecedented. That's what happened for Jason Ganos, a self-described "Nintendo super fan," who found a box full of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridges for NES in pristine condition thanks to a friend at a local retro game shop. The best part? These 97 cartridges are likely from the game's final production run – an absurdly rare variant that had never previously been discovered.

Sometime in the '90s, the owner of a precious metal recovery business bought this box of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt carts, and they were "supposed to be melted down and salvaged for the gold on the contacts of the pins," as Ganos writes on Nintendo Wire, the news site where he serves as editor-in-chief.

But that didn't happen. Instead, the box ended up sitting in the garage of the grandson of the salvage company owner for "for over 20 years." Kevin Braun, the owner of a small retro shop near Milwaukee, Wisconsin called OneStopWonders, bought the box of cartridges with the intent to "sell each game for roughly $10 to $15 apiece."

If you're like me, a lifelong gamer hovering somewhere in the 35- to 45-year-old range, you'll likely remember the Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt combo cartridges as being absolutely ubiquitous. They were packed in with many NES consoles, and the used market was absolutely awash with them. Even as the collector's market has dramatically inflated the value of other retro classics, Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridges are still inexpensive and plentiful.

Pretty crazy stuff if you haven't seen it - a game store owner had a box of Super Mario/Duck Hunt carts that turned out to be- brand new- manufactured in 1993 (!)- an extremely late variant unknown to collectorsnintendowire.com/news/2026/07...

— @kohler.bsky.social (@kohler.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-31T15:55:36.985Z

So when Ganos, who worked with Braun to sell various games online, discovered this box sitting in the retro store owner's storage unit, he was primarily shocked because of the games' condition, not their rarity. These were effectively new carts, neatly wrapped up with crisp manuals alongside them. "Seeing brand-new Nintendo games is an incredibly exciting thing for a game collector," Ganos explains. "But seeing 97 of them all lined up, all of them pristine, nearly knocked me straight on my ass."

Ganos didn't realize the true value of his discovery until he started sharing photos of the games with members of a high-end collecting group. "What I had found wasn't just a box of pristine Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridges. It was an undocumented, never before seen variant. The back label was unlike anything that had been documented before. Instead of the standard English-only text, it featured multiple languages. The manufacturing codes on both the cartridge and instruction manual also differed, indicating these games were produced in late 1993," Ganos says.

"Even the manual contained previously undocumented text. Known manuals include the phrase 'maintenance or repairs,' while this newly discovered version instead reads 'maintenance or service.' Perhaps most puzzling of all, the manufacturing dates on both the cartridge and manual come after every known Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt bundle these games could have belonged to."

The conclusion? "What we had found was the very last production run, and an undiscovered variant of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt." Ganos soon personally flew the 97 cartridges out to be graded by PSA, which encased the carts in plastic with some being graded as a perfect 10.

We've seen rare, graded Super Mario Bros. carts sell for millions of dollars in the past, but exactly how much collectors will be willing to pay for these remains to be seen. Ganos and Braun intend to split the carts, "keeping an undecided number for ourselves. Some of the others will be auctioned off, and others will have charity auctions set up in the very near future." More specifically, the first three auctions will occur on August 12, so we'll know the true value of these games soon enough.

These are the best NES games of all time.

Despite the announcement of Super Mario Sunshine's return, some new Nintendo artwork has seemingly confirmed the demise of dear Toadsworth.

Super Mario Sunshine is launching on Nintendo Switch Online next month, Nintendo has confirmed. The title which one GamesRadar+ writer – me – has referred to as a game only cowards think is the worst Mario game also gave birth to one of the series most beloved side characters.

Toadsworth is a posh old Toad and assistant to Peach who joins her and Mario on their Isle Delfino vacation, and since then has become an iconic part of the Toad cast. And despite Toadette – who was introduced afterwards, and not even in a mainline game – becoming more and more prominent in the time since, Toadsworth has disappeared.

13 years… that's how long it's been since we last saw Toadsworth in an original Mario game, outside Smash Bros. cameos and remakes (and underwhelming remakes like Mario Party: The Top 100). Mario & Luigi Dream Team marked his last appearance, and it's fitting as he's only been a part of our dreams since then.

There's even an old Toad character in the movies who could've easily been the moustachioed one, but isn't. Even with the likes of Cataquack and Pianta appearing in spin-offs like Mario Kart World, one of Sunshine's biggest characters is nowhere to be seen.

And now, Nintendo's latest summer wallpaper has referenced an iconic bit of Super Mario Sunshine art, only with Toadsworth removed from the picture. And fans on the Mario subreddit have taken notice. A post titled "are we fucking serious nintendo" points out the missing Toad, garnering responses like "and then there's Toadsworth, he's dead…"

In fact, a few people have speculated that the old Toad has passed away. Some, however, have taken a slightly less grim outlook, saying, "He really is never showing up again."

Meanwhile, another points out an inclusion in the picture that makes things sting a bit more, "they included FLUDD but not Toadsworth," to which a response says "it really goes top[sic] show how much they care about Toadsworth sadly."

Others think his death could be a consequence to his deeds in previous games, with two users speculating that "he was executed" due to actions in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door or Mario Super Sluggers

Toadsworth is maybe a bit too important to be considered a Glup Shitto (I know no one asked, but my favourite Mario Glup Shitto is Strollin Stu, another Mario Sunshine banger), but it's a shame to see a fun character disappear for seemingly no reason. Will it cause me to boycott the next Mario? Of course not, but seeing his warm brown mushroom head again would be a welcome sight.

Super Mario Sunshine gets 10-player online co-op in mod that lets you tag-team the GameCube classic as Wario, Luigi, and Sonic.

Nintendo has confirmed that Super Mario Sunshine will be hitting Nintendo Switch Online for Switch 2 owners next month.

In a video released on the Nintendo Japan YouTube channel, Nintendo confirms that on August 13, Super Mario Sunshine will finally be available on Nintendo Switch Online for people who own a Switch 2 console and have the Expansion Pass version of the subscription.

From the looks of things, that sure is Super Mario Sunshine. Notably, the entire trailer was presented in 4:3, so it looks like the improvements made on the Super Mario 3D All-Stars version of the game are not included – meaning Switch 1 owners may technically be getting the better version of Sunshine anyway (if they can find a copy).

So, if you missed out on 3D All Stars, now you can finally play what cowards call the worst Mario game. Yes it's rushed, glitchy, and somewhat unfinished, but good lord if Super Mario Sunshine does not have the sauce. I'd recommend anyone playing it to just move around on some of the levels from the outset and get to grips with just how incredible Mario feels to control. Yes, the Galaxy games are masterpieces, but Sunshine's movement was the best of the franchise until Odyssey came along. The game itself is pretty good too, even if the lilypad and pachinko levels can do things to themselves that I'm not allowed to publish.

This announcement was presented with the "Super Mario Bros. 40th Anniversary" emblem, suggesting Nintendo isn't quite finished with celebrating it just yet, so perhaps some more Mario could show up in a future Nintendo Direct.

Nate The Hate – who has accurately leaked a number of Nintendo rumors for well over a year now – said the next 3D Super Mario game is planned for 2027 right now. And while not impossible for it to appear in the inevitable September Nintendo Direct, Nintendo's MO for the last few years has typically been announcing games when they're only a few months out – although Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave, Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, and Rhythm Heaven Groove have subverted that trend as of late.

Super Mario Sunshine gets 10-player online co-op in mod that lets you tag-team the GameCube classic as Wario, Luigi, and Sonic.

Nintendo veteran Shigeru Miyamoto, probably best known as the grandaddy of all things Mario, says he has no idea why the old fella is so appealing to players. While Miyamoto designed the jumping plumber alongside artist Yoichi Kotabe, he still doesn't understand why people find him so likeable.

Gaming giant Nintendo is well known for its adorable mascots like Pikachu, Kirby, and the ever pleasing Pikmin, but not all of its main characters are quite as friend shaped as these. Mario's rotund form is charming in its own way, but at its core, he's just a stout adult man with a fetching mustache.

In an interview with Famitsu, that's been translated by GamesRadar+, Miyamoto was asked why he thinks Nintendo's key franchises are so beloved all over the world. In response the Nintendo fellow says, "I wish someone would tell me," with a chuckle.

"I always hear people say 'why does a mustachioed old dude like Mario sell so well?'," he continues. "While I think that's rude, truthfully I've had the same thought. 'Why does this old guy sell so well?'"

Nintendo has plenty of human protagonists aside from Mario, but characters like Link and Samus look strong and give a powerful aura. They are heroes. Mario is a plumber.

However, there is an answer that Miyamoto has come up with, and it's not that people are just in awe of his stylish dungarees and rippling mustache. "The simple answer that I've come up with is that he's bundled with incredibly fun games," he says. We think he doesn't give the goomba-stomping gallivanter enough credit.

Shigeru Miyamoto knows some fans have "multiple Nintendo consoles at home," and hopes that'll become "the norm" in the future: "That would be the best scenario."

Nintendo fans have created a mod for a GameCube classic, with Better Super Mario Sunshine Online introducing 10-player multiplayer to Mario's most divisive 3D platformer.

There's two camps when it comes to Nintendo's 2002 platformer Super Mario Sunshine. There are those who really like it, and then there are cowards. Yes, it's a weird, somewhat flawed game sandwiched between two genre-defining masterpieces in the 3D Mario chronology, and yes it was rushed and a little glitchy, but beneath that paint covered exterior is a platformer with near-unmatched vibes, music, and – crucially for a platformer – movement.

Thankfully, there are others who are equally passionate about Mario's worst-selling 3D platformer (well, if you don't count the Super Mario 3D All Stars sales), as the modding community for the game is fairly active. The latest gargantuan mod however, brings the game one of the most popular mods from Super Mario 64's massive repertoire, as Better Super Mario Sunshine Online implements online play into the GameCube title.

The mod introduces 10-player co-op to the game, allowing you to collect each of the game's 120 Shine Sprites together. The mod syncs progress across all players modes too, to make the hunt for blue coins a team effort instead of the worst part of the game. On top of that, there's also a 10-player hide and seek mode for those who want something to compete in while taking advantage of the incredible movement tech in Super Mario Sunshine.

This isn't even just a simple mod that has multiple Marios on one screen, as the mod features "15 fully custom characters" with classic Mario legends like Wario, Luigi, Waluigi, and Shadow the Hedgehog, with unique custom animations for some of them. Obviously, you'll need to find at least one fellow Mario Sunshine apologist to play with, but let's be real, if none of your friends are willing to indulge your platforming fantasy, were they ever really your friends to begin with?

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is hiding an unused "joyful zone" area where Mario can't stop somersaulting, and he's absolutely thrilled about it

Mario very regularly has a huge smile on his face, whether he's stomping on sentient flowers or chowing down magical mushrooms, but there's one unused area in Super Mario Galaxy 2 that makes our already loveable plumber go into a somersaulting frenzy. And, seriously, I've never heard Mario sound so happy.

Super dedicated blogger and series archivist Supper Mario Broth recently found that Super Mario Galaxy 2 has been hiding an "unused 'joyful zone' area" for all these years. Should Mario step foot into the zone, he gets the zoomies and the giggles or, more plainly, he'll uncontrollably run and somersault and scream "Yahoo!" without stopping.

In a hilarious experiment, Supper Mario Broth recently "enveloped the entirety of Starship Mario in a joyful zone for demonstrative purposes." The result is incredible - you can watch it down below. I dare you not to smile, dear reader.

Rosalina and the Lumas are apparently immune to the joyful bug. Not everyone appreciates jumping high and being obnoxious about it as much as Mario, to be fair, but still.

In the game's files, the zone is apparently called "CometFireDanceArea," perhaps suggesting the mechanic was once intended for one of Super Mario Galaxy 2's Prankster Comets - special missions that would modify a pre-existing level with fun rules, asking you to race your cosmic doppelganger or beat a boss with one health point, say. I can definitely imagine a comet that would make Mario complete levels without stopping or jumping normally.

Nintendo added a bizarre "anti-brother romance failsafe" to NES Remix to stop Mario from getting too close with Luigi on Wii U, expert says

Nintendo apparently obliterated any chance of Mario and Luigi experiencing brotherly affection in Wii U retro challenge game NES Remix, and I can't help but feel a bit disappointed in the developer's flagrant bias against toxic yaoi. Come on, Nintendo, don't you know we're in the middle of a male loneliness epidemic?

Mario blogger and connoisseur Supper Mario Brother explained in a Bluesky post, with information discovered by Bluesky user DavidPCM, the way "NES Remix contains a graphic that seems to be an 'anti-brother romance failsafe' for Mario and Luigi." Nintendo appears to have been preoccupied with the idea. So much so that it preemptively altered a scene between Mario and Luigi that should be "normally impossible to reach in-game" anyway.

I can't quite fault Nintendo for this – "NES Remix incest glitch" sounds like something I would learn about from the front page of Reddit, and then my eyes would start bleeding. But, to defend hypothetical affectionate Mario and affectionate Luigi, I really think the graphic Nintendo devs were so worried about could be interpreted as familial. Their concern was with the standard pink heart that appears between Mario and Pauline once Mario finally rescues her in Donkey Kong.

been digging through NES Remix lately. one thing I've never seen before is that they edited the heart at the end of Donkey Kong to "GOOD JOB!" in the remixed stages with Luigi. Luigi never reaches 100M in that game, so it's never seen. It's also completely omitted in the .fcb for Bonus-4's mission.

— @davidpcm.bsky.social (@davidpcm.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-24T19:58:28.111Z

Supper Mario Broth reminds us that, in stages Remix 14 and 17 in NES Remix, Donkey Kong is all wiggled around. The game is mirrored, and Luigi replaces Mario as the hero to protect him, not Pauline, from Donkey Kong. In these topsy-turvy stages, it isn't actually possible to activate the heart graphic like you would in a regular game of Donkey Kong with Mario and Pauline.

"The only stages visited are 25m and 75m," says Supper Mario Broth, and the pink heart only appears in the black void sky when Pauline is whisked away at the 100m stage. So, heartbreakingly, "Mario never actually gets saved," clarifies Supper Mario Broth. Another man lost to the loneliness epidemic.

But just in case Mario managed to extricate himself from Donkey Kong, enroll himself in psychotherapy, and gain a new zest for life with the help of hobbies, friends, and indeed, a brother's love, the NES Remix devs decided to change Pauline's pink heart to a graphic for Mario that says "GOOD JOB!"

While I'm glad Mario is at least being encouraged to express praise, you never see him tell Luigi GOOD JOB! since the conditions for him to do so are nonexistent in NES Remix, like we established.

Ultimately, "it is unknown why the graphic was added," says Supper Mario Broth. "The developers could have planned to have the full game playable in that mode, or they could have changed the graphic purely as a precaution in case someone managed to get to 100m (e.g. via a glitch) to prevent implications of romantic love between Mario and Luigi."

So sorry, guys, but if you want to give each other an encouraging kiss on the forehead, it's going to have to happen somewhere else.

Mario Kart Tour is shutting down after 7 years, but Nintendo isn't planning on an Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp-style offline version.

One of the best platformers in recent years – the adorably bouncy Poinpy – is back from the dead and is now totally free. And in case the delightfully moreish game missed you the first time around, it's now unshackled from its Netflix Games cell.

For those out of the loop, Poinpy became a critically-acclaimed fan-favorite when it came out in 2022 as an exclusive in the Netflix Games catalogue. As long as you had a regular Netflix subscription, you could play as much Poinpy as you liked alongside a suite of other games.

But an entire year ago, Poinpy was removed from the service due to the expiration of a licensing deal, leaving the our blobby green hero in limbo since it wasn't available on any other platform. Publisher Devolver Digital has now revived the game and put it onto mobile storefronts for free – no purchase or Netflix account required.

Poinpy is now available to download on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. Just don't let that 'In-App Purchases' note scare you off. "Poinpy is 100% free! There are no ads and no purchases required to play. If you love Poinpy and want to support the developer, please leave a tip," the storefront description explains.

That developer is Moppin, otherwise known as Ojiro Fumoto, who also made the equally excellent roguelike Downwell and contributed to UFO 50. Poinpy serves as somewhat of an answer to Downwell, however – instead of descending into a seemingly never-ending cavern of deadly creatures, Poinpy has you flicking the screen to send our hero flying up and up and up, bouncing on walls, off of enemies, and toward colorful fruit in the hopes of satiating the always-hungry, even bigger cat-like blob who's always licking its lips on the bottom of the screen. A true to life feline, that is.

Rationing a limited number of jumps per level, chaining together bounces to elongate your airtime, and finding oh so many secrets is an absolute blast. The whole thing feels so tactile to play and looks great, too, so now's your chance.

For more, check out the new games on the horizon and the upcoming indie games you should have on your radar.

Sonic Team lead Takashi Iizuka teases there's more to come within the series' many pillars, and that keeping the series' momentum is a challenge.

Sonic is simultaneously a yearly franchise and a franchise that feels like it's been missing. While 2026 is the first year without a new release for the series since 2018, it will feature a second season of DLC for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds.

However, fans have been wondering when a proper follow-up to Sonic Frontiers will finally emerge – possibly compounded by general disappointment with 2023's Sonic Superstars, the latest mainline entry in the series.

Speaking to 80.lv, Iizuka explains he sees the different branches of the series as pillars – such as 2D games, 3D games, spinoffs, and collaborations. He explains, "Each of the different pillars contributes in meaningful ways to the Sonic franchise, and we're looking forward to what we have in store."

As for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Iizuka says the second season of DLC for the acclaimed racing game – which features collabs with Godzilla and Neon Genesis Evangelion – "signals our long-term investment in the game," and while it seemingly underperformed, it looks like Sega is happy to keep trying until everyone realizes that it's actually pretty sick.

Iizuka adds, "While keeping momentum in such a competitive market is always a challenge, our team remains dedicated to delivering content that stays true to the Sonic universe."

Most recently, a collab game between Sonic and indie hit Pico Park was announced. A decade ago, Sega apparently had the character on the chopping block, but fortunately the blue blur is likely here to stay for now… I really want to hear about that Frontiers sequel though.

Sonic fans couldn't wait for Sega's new alternate-reality game – until they spotted the AI training agreement.

DK Rap composer Grant Kirkhope has revealed he has made less than a dollar off the song's 1.5 million plays on TikTok.

The DK Rap is widely considered the most influential piece of music ever composed. This triumphant song about a group of five iconic simians transcended the Nintendo 64 game it was an intro to and made musical history. Without Lanky Kong, you probably wouldn't have had The Beatles debut about 40 years earlier.

At the very least – whether through meme remixes (see below), ironic enjoyment, or just appreciation for art – the DK Rap has become a staple of the series, arguably being more popular than Donkey Kong 64 itself with appearances in Super Smash Bros., The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and most recently, Donkey Kong Bananza. DK Rap composer Kirkhope has embraced the fandom around the song with a remake of the song for it's 25th anniversary, and by making the "Yooka-Laylee Rap" for the titular game.

Over on Twitter, Kirkhope comments on the song's enduring popularity, saying: "In other news the DK Rap had 1.5 million plays on Tik Tok." But there's a caveat: "I got paid 56 cents."

While the amount artists make off their music in the streaming era is a hot topic as of late, having the numbers laid out in front of you like that is somewhat wild. Kirkhope follows up the tweet, saying: "It shouldn't surprise me that most people don't know how music royalties work. Most composers don't either…"

Unfortunately, Kirkhope hasn't had too much luck with the DK Rap as of late, as famously the song's appearance in the Mario Movie didn't result in him getting a credit in the film, with a generic "Nintendo" credit shown. Kirkhope admitted last year: "I still haven't watched the movie yet. I've seen that bit with the rap. But I was so pissed I haven't watched it."

Donkey Kong Bananza devs admit the blatantly OP elephant transformation "probably went too far," but "it's fun" and "that's what matters most."

Kirby and Super Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai and Square Enix are celebrating the 43rd anniversary of the release of Nintendo's first major home console, the Famicom.

As Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda are fresh off celebrating their 40th anniversaries, and Donkey Kong celebrated its 45th last week, Nintendo's first proper home console – not counting the single-game Color TV-Game series, which had been released beforehand – the Famicom celebrates its 43rd today. While it would take another couple of years for the console to arrive as the NES in North America (and another couple on top for the UK), the Famicom dropped in Japan on July 15, 1983, with Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye in tow.

Sakurai, whose sole NES credit is directing Kirby's Adventure, which was one of the final Nintendo-published releases on the system, posted on Twitter (via machine translation) wishing the console a happy 43rd anniversary. He added that the platform – despite consoles releasing before and after – had the biggest impact on him as a game creator.

Square Enix also posted a short video celebrating the release of the classic console, showing the original Final Fantasy booting up on the platform (with a Dragon Quest box sitting off to the side). The two most iconic and influential JRPG series of all time both started on the platform, making it a crucial place for the genre.

Back in 2023, Sakurai released a video about the Famicom on his 'Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games' YouTube show, where he dubbed it "perfect". The director opened the video saying, "I can proudly say I've developed a game for the Famicom, aka the Family Computer. That makes me pretty lucky!"

Sakurai bought the console in 1983 – owning one of the earlier models which featured square buttons instead of the circular A and B buttons seen by the time the NES was released. As for one reason the console remains such an iconic part of his life, he points out the massive leaps in game development back then, using the gulf in scope between 1983's Mario Bros. and 1985's Super Mario Bros. as an example.

He points out that there are a number of game developers like Nier's Yoko Taro, Devil May Cry's Hideki Kamiya, Kingdom Hearts' Tetsuya Nomura, and Doom's John Carmack who are the same age as Sakurai, "but only a small handful of them ever actually developed a game for the Famicom."

Sakurai adds, "If the Famicom had never existed, the shape of the modern game market – really the entire video game industry – would be completely different." And that even though the games are easily available and may seem quaint now, Sakurai says, "what I really want to stress is that at the time, it truly was an absolute dream machine."

Super Smash Bros creator Masahiro Sakurai sometimes "sounds exactly like Goku," ex-Tekken boss says: "A Saiyan who genuinely believes he's just another ordinary human"

Toys For Bob leads say they are more than happy for Spyro: A Realm Beyond to share the 3D platformer spotlight as the genre goes through a resurgence thanks to games like Astro Bot and more.

Kinda Funny Gamescast spoke to Spyro: A Realm Beyond associate creative director Lou Studdert and studio head Paul Yan. As part of that, the duo was asked how they feel about 3D platformers outside of Toys For Bob and if we're entering a so-called "Golden era" for the genre. Studdert says, "I don't know about golden era, but it's a resurgence. Definitely." This return for the genre is something he says "warms my heart because that is totally my genre of choice." He also singles out the announcement of Rayman Legends Retold, calling it "awesome," and that 2024's Astro Bot was "game of the year."

Studdert adds that he "couldn't be more happy" explaining, "It is so great because these are the experiences that, you know, the reason that I play games is because I grew up with those experiences."

Studdert calls the platformer "the purest form of video game in my mind," saying that it's "about the fantasy of controlling a different character and the fun and joy that comes in the responsiveness and how you interact with the world. And it's like you can layer other things on that, but to me, that's like the source of what makes a fun video game is just exploring a space and having a unique character and a unique way of doing that."

While AAA platformers are still very rare compared to the amount we got in the PS2 days, Studdert also shouts out "a ton of really amazing indie platformers," which has helped the genre remain relevant today. He says, "It's the more the merrier. It's phenomenal. I love seeing it." And in cases like Wario Land, Banjo-Kazooie, and Mystical Ninja, indie games like Pizza Tower, Yooka-Laylee, and Bakeru are probably the closest we'll ever get to those series' return.

Spyro: A Realm Beyond devs didn't want their platformer to be a "flight simulator," so you can't leave your favorite dragon on "autopilot"

The first all-new Spyro game in 18 years, Spyro: A Realm Beyond, is finally set to launch early next year, but the devs at Toys for Bob have had to be careful not to get too carried away with their "cool ideas" that would see the platformer run out of budget and time.

Associate creative director Louis "Lou" Studdert and studio head Paul Yan recently appeared on an episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, where they were asked if there were any moments during development when they realised they were going too far.

The answer is yes, though Studdert explains that "every game is like that" since there's so much "eyeballing" and "napkin math" involved as the team works out what elements might need cutting back, and what they might want more of.

"There are areas where you tighten the belt, and there's areas where you expand," he continues. "Just part of the game development process."

Yan adds to this, noting that "scope creep is a real thing." There's a simple reason for this: "Every time you're in a conversation with creative folks, it's always like, 'Wouldn't it be cool if this happened?'"

And yes, Yan says, "they absolutely are cool ideas, but if you commit to every single one of those, you know, without some discipline, then your game blows out of budget and blows out of time."

Thankfully, this isn't Toys for Bob's first rodeo. The studio has "high tenure folks who have worked together and can complete each other's sentences," and are also so "highly senior" that they know the drill when it comes to shipping games and understanding "'what is the scope within our team,'" Yan says.

In summary, he concludes, "We know ourselves, and we know when things are a little bit beyond our reach, or too much, and then we'll pull it back down to be what's appropriate for us developing it and also for the experience."

One thing the devs haven't held back on, however, is A Realm Beyond's flight system. In the same podcast, the devs explain that they wanted flying to be a very "active" thing, and crucially, not like a "flight simulator" where you can leave Spyro on "autopilot." So, expect you can find plenty of "decision-making" there.

Spyro: A Realm Beyond dev says the "loud and consistent" fans who bought 11 million copies of the Reignited trilogy helped manifest the series' first new game in years.

Spyro: A Realm Beyond introduces the ability to fly around freely as the titular purple dragon, but the devs at Toys for Bob want you to know that they've not made a "flight simulator," because "we want active decision-making."

Speaking on a new episode of the Kinda Funny Games podcast, associate creative director Louis "Lou" Studdert confirms that flying isn't just some sort of passive ability that you can use with zero thought – you'll have to put the effort in, pushing buttons, to guide Spyro around the sky.

"We wanted to make sure that it is active. It is decision-making. It is pressing buttons. It is almost, you know, that platforming feel of evaluating a play space and figuring out how to continue," Studdert says.

Pointing to some gameplay footage, Studdert explains that Spyro can dive downwards "to pick up speed," as well as "use his flame breath, spit a fireball at distance to ignite a campfire to create a wind updraft to give him quicker lift," before the player presses a button "to flap his wings to push on his momentum and keep his speed up." Spyro can also activate "sky rings" for a boost in the air.

"It's really about evaluating the play space," he continues. "It's looking [at] what you can interact with and connecting all of those to sustain your momentum and to keep going."

Toys for Bob studio head Paul Yan chimes in: "It's super important for us that the player is able to say, 'Look at that thing off in the distance. How do I get there? And then how do I leverage the environments around me and my abilities in order to do that?' Because what we don't want is for it to be a flight simulator where we say, 'OK, here's the destination, hit in the GPS, we're going to coast and get there.' There's no fun in that."

Yan reiterates that there's "no autopilot" option for Spyro's flight because "we want active decision-making." He explains: "Platforming as a term in this flight space is a little bit different than platforming like jumping on the ground, but similarly, we want that kind of decision-making to happen in that space."

Spyro: A Realm Beyond is set to release early next year, and Yan previously told us that the devs "want not just one new game, but many new games. We hope that this is the first of many." With that in mind, hopefully we won't be waiting another 18 years for the next all-new one.

"Going independent meant taking a massive, massive risk": How Toys for Bob split off from Activision and Xbox to help guide Spyro to A Realm Beyond.

Nintendo is celebrating the 45th Anniversary of Donkey Kong today, so I've hit the digital badlands of eBay. That original date refers to everyone's favorite gorilla's first outing in arcades, but I'm taking things back to the home console this week. Looking to build the ultimate Donkey Kong collection in time for the big boy's birthday? I've got you covered.

Below, you'll find every major Donkey Kong game released into our hands and homes (though I've omitted re-releases in the form of compilations, mini-games, virtual consoles, digital bonuses, and DSI-only downloads), alongside eBay's average sold price at the time of writing.

In short, it's everything you need to start plugging some holes in your collection or start right from scratch with the cheapest pickups. We're taking this banana-train all the way through to the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 to boot - where the games listed will run alongside their lowest prices on the web right now.

Before Cranky Kong gets ahead of me, just note that some of the prices below may seem a little high at first glance. That's because this is a full average of all recently sold listings - whether it's pristine in box or simply a cart in a bag.

Donkey Kong Game and Watch games

Donkey Kong NES games

Donkey Kong SNES games

Donkey Kong Game Boy games

N64 Donkey Kong games

Donkey Kong Game Boy Advance games

Donkey Kong GameCube games

Donkey Kong Nintendo DS games

Donkey Kong Wii games

Donkey Kong 3DS games

Donkey Kong Wii U games

Donkey Kong Nintendo Switch games

Donkey Kong Nintendo Switch 2 games

Nintendo has finally added Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 to Nintendo Switch Online, and it only took three years.

Nintendo Switch Online's Nintendo Classics lineups are weird. The release schedules are strange; sometimes absolutely essential titles don't appear while the weirdest games possible show up – N64 still doesn't have Super Smash Bros, but we do have Iggy's Reckin' Balls.

However, the absolute weirdest of those is the Game Boy, which got licensed titles like the licensed game of Warner Bros. Quest For Camelot before Super Mario Land or Donkey Kong '94 arrived.

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins arrived at launch, while the original – literally the first Game Boy game ever released – took a year and three months. The same goes for Wario Land, the Switch app launched with Wario Land 3 back in February 2023, with the original or its sequel nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile, Wario Land 4 hit GBA last year, Wario World arrived on GameCube, and Virtual Boy Wario Land launched alongside the new app this year, making the entire series, barring the first two (and the Wii-exclusive, The Shake Dimension), available.

That changes today however, as almost three-and-a-half years down the line from the Game Boy's introduction to the Switch Online library, Nintendo has confirmed that the first game starring Mario's bulky rival Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is on Switch Online. The game drops alongside Fortified Zone and The Sword of Hope 2, while the GBA app is getting Dr Mario and Puzzle League (two games that are available in multiple forms on other apps, but still a good game regardless).

Nintendo fans have a tendency to accuse Nintendo of having some beef with franchises that are rarely seen – see: Metroid from 2010-2017, Star Fox before 2026, F-Zero, Mother fans who can't accept the series is just over – but Nintendo is so consistently weird with Wario Land that I can't help but wonder how people at the company feel about it. Wario's representation in Super Smash Bros. for example is almost entirely based around the WarioWare series with only his dash attack shoulder barge being from his first series, and it's been almost two decades since the last entry – which released the same year he was added to Smash Bros.

With the resurgence of Wario-like indie titles like Pizza Tower and Antonblast, hopefully there's some fire to go along with the smoke of a new Wario Land game, of which rumors emerged last month.

WarioWare: Move It is the Smooth Moves spiritual successor I've always wanted

Less than seven years since launch, Nintendo has announced that its free-to-play Mario Kart game, Mario Kart Tour, is shutting down, with no offline equivalent to keep it playable once its servers go down.

Specifically, Mario Kart Tour will be unplayable from September 29, 2026, at 11pm PT – equivalent to September 30 at 2am ET or 7am BST. "We sincerely thank the many players who have loved and supported the game since service began so long ago," Nintendo says in its shutdown notice.

With the announcement, Nintendo has also ended the sale of Rubies (in-game currency), and stopped new purchases and automatic renewals of the game's Gold Pass subscription. Anyone with an existing subscription can "continue to enjoy Mario Kart Tour Gold Pass benefits, minus continuous-subscription benefits," for free until the game's shutdown, and those without a subscription will be given the same benefits from August 4.

Worst of all for any fans of Tour, though, is Nintendo's confirmation that "an offline version is not scheduled for release." When Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp's end of service was announced back in 2024, Nintendo immediately confirmed that it was developing a way to save your game data and let you keep playing, with the one-time-purchase release Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete coming along to save the day for longtime fans.

It seems that with Mario Kart Tour, fans will just have to cling onto the game's tracks that made it into Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and World. There are quite a few – 8 Deluxe added the likes of Tokyo Blur, Paris Promenade, and Sky-High Sundae, for example, with the latter returning in World. Here's hoping that more tracks could get preserved in Mario Kart World as DLC over time. The Switch 2 game only last week was updated with two new Knockout Tour routes, though these didn't add any traditional new tracks – just new ways to experience the old ones.

While you're here, be sure to check out our ranking of the best Mario Kart games.

It's been nearly seven years now since Activision and Toys for Bob released Spyro: Reignited Trilogy – and there's a reason the well-received three-in-one remake feels so faithful to its old counterparts from the late 90s and early 2000s.

In case you've never played the remade trilogy, it's pretty solid – in fact, it plays exactly as I remember the original few games playing, striking the perfect balance between nostalgia and quality of life (I'm looking at you, OG PlayStation controls).

Toys for Bob studio head Paul Yan explains how and why the developers pulled this off in a new discussion with Kinda Funny on YouTube – and insightful is an understatement here.

According to the lead, the team first tried to find source code in-house so it could "reconstruct it" for the Reignited Trilogy.

So, instead, "one of our engineers took an open- source emulator and then modified that so that we looked at the original game and actually peered into its data, extracted a lot of the models… We extracted the levels. We measured all the metrics. We found the exact placement for every gem."

That's not all, though. "We measured the timing, the speed, and the paths of certain enemies." In other words, they delved deep into the modified emulator. "It gave us a lot of metrics that gave us the authenticity on that side of it," as Yan says.

Obviously, they did change some things so that Spyro: Reignited Trilogy wouldn't feel too "old," so to speak – the controls, as I joked earlier, are one of the bigger things.

And, honestly, I'm grateful that they did. As associate creative director Lou Studdert chimes in, after all, players tend to have "rose-tinted glasses" on when approaching retro games like Spyro.

You imagine them looking and playing a whole lot differently than they actually did – but the devs took that into account with Spyro: Reignited Trilogy, and it's better for it. I do wonder, though… how will Spyro: A Realm Beyond feel, in contrast?

We have some very exciting features – like free flight and such – to look forward to, but also the same colorful visuals that made the original games so comforting. Personally, I can't wait to give it a go… a new entry has been a long time coming.

"Going independent meant taking a massive, massive risk": How Toys for Bob split off from Activision and Xbox to help guide Spyro to A Realm Beyond

Somehow, someway, the Super Mario 64 speedrunning scene miraculously finds a way to outdo itself time and time again. A three-year-old record was just beaten, by a true expert of the classic platformer who's still finding ways to be the most efficient jumping Italian plumber around.

The record-setter in question here is Suigi, a name you'll be familiar with if you know Super Mario 64 speedrunning at all, and just a few years after he crushed a time for 16 star completion, he's managed to do it again. This go around, he somehow found a way to shave a few seconds off, for a truly astounding finish of 14 minutes and 32 seconds.

"I wasn't done," he says in a post on Twitter. "FIRST 16 STAR WORLD RECORD IN OVER 3 YEARS."

The record prior was 14 minutes and 35 seconds, set in March 2023. While this mightn't seem like a huge jump, when you're talking about relays this small, even getting a full second lower is an achievement. Suigi's leapfrogged significantly more than that.

It mightn't shock you to hear he beat his own record in March 2023 as well. A dominant force when it comes to Mario's big out on the Nintendo 64, Suigi is top of the leaderboards on speedrun.com for every major, full-game category on the platform.

Outside of 16 star, those are 120 star, 70 star, one star, and zero, and Suigi's the man to beat across them all. Again, these are all on native hardware as well, in this instance on Japanese copies of the game as they're the fastest in terms of loading times and text and the like.

In speedrunning, every little helps. Seeing this, I have to wonder how long it'll be before the threshold of 14 minutes and 30 seconds will be reached. It might be a while considering the minute ways runs can be tightened further, but I wouldn't discount Suigi at all. Let's reconvene in three years and see where we're at.

Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy maestro Tetsuya Nomura says Super Mario 64 "truly shaped my current guiding principle" when moving to 3D JRPGs.

Donkey Kong 64: Recompiled promises to give us all a perfected version of Rare's N64 collectathon, playable on PC complete with modern resolutions, high frame rates, and extensive additional features via mods. The project isn't ready for release just yet, but the devs have a good reason for announcing it early – they want to make sure their version is front of mind instead of a "poorly made" alternative built with AI code.

The trailer for DK64: Recompiled covers pretty much all of the bases you'd expect from a project of this nature, building a new version of the game for various PC platforms with the help of the N64: Recompiled tool that was released back in 2024. Donkey Kong 64 still has a controversial reputation among Nintendo fans thanks to its vast pile of collectables and massive difficulty spikes, but for those whose love of the game remains true, this will likely be an ideal way to play it.

But, of course, it's not yet available, and won't be until later this summer. In a Reddit comment (thanks, Kotaku), developer Ballaam says that the team normally wouldn't announce a project so early, but there's "a competitor who is vibe coding their way through, and doing a very poor job of it. As such, we want to get our intention out that we're doing a recomp of actually good quality before our competitor releases their poorly made one and some infrastructure is built around that one."

I'm not qualified to speak on how useful AI code is to experienced programmers – Gabe Newell is certainly excited about it – but the fans behind projects like this have been inundated with examples of it being used badly. Earlier this year, the devs behind PS3 emulator RPCS3 starting begging would-be contributors to "stop submitting AI slop code" because it just wasn't worth the hassle of sorting through it all.

In theory, Donkey Kong 64: Recompiled should be able to serve as a platform for modders who want to expand the original game with new features and content, but that only works when you've got a strong foundation from the beginning. Even the announcement trailer for the project promises that it "does not rely on AI vibe coding," and it's clear the devs want to put their best foot forward for the community they're hoping to foster.

After years of suffering, Spyro fans suddenly have not just a brand-new game but an impending PC port of the OG PS1 classic with 60 FPS and "true widescreen" support.

2026 marks Sonic the Hedgehog's 35th anniversary, and at Summer Game Fest, I got the chance to play maybe the most unusual part of Sega's celebrations: Sonic Pico Park, a co-op puzzle platformer that once again puts Sega's iconic blue blur in the hands of beloved indie devs. It's a sign of an evolving game industry, and the developers bringing Sonic Pico Park to life know that Sonic's continued evolution is key to the character's long-term survival.

My hands-on time with Sonic Pico Park is equal parts delightful and frustrating – pretty much as you'd expect for an indie couch co-op game. Just like the rest of developer Tecopark's puzzle platformer series, you and your fellow players take control of an array of boxy little characters and cooperate to work your way through challenges custom-built to ruin relationships.

Co-op for devs and players alike

The difference here is that there are now Sonic-influenced twists to all the levels. You can spin dash through cracked walls, run through big loops, and bounce off of strategically placed springs. Naturally, these elements play into the puzzle design, too. You can collect rings which, in true Sonic fashion, will save you from a single hit – which means you need to strategically choose who takes each ring to survive the death traps that'll follow.

In one instance, you need to build a wall that one player can spin dash their way up. In another, you'll need a Tails player to fly the whole group across a big gap. The joy is in the discovery, so I won't spoil too many specific puzzle solutions, but it's all great fun. Of course, you'll already know the basics if you've played any of the Pico Park games before, but Tecopark sought out this collaboration in part because it wants to bring in new fans.

Pico Park is already wildly popular on its own merits, having sold some 8 million units. Creator Shunsuke "Teco" Miyake wanted to expand even further, however, and in 2021 formed a company to help the property reach the next level. "We really wanted to start expanding on Pico Park as an IP," as producer Shintaro Shimazu tells me via translator. "It was really popular with casual gamers, but we wanted to reach out and get even hardcore gamers and other people excited."

Shimazu explains that "we really thought we need to start collabing with IP," and since Miyake once worked at Sega, it was an obvious first choice. "Sonic is a great IP to collab with. It's got tons of appeal. People love it worldwide. Let's go to Sega. I doubt they'll ever let us even do this, but let's at least pitch it to them and see what they have to say. Maybe we'll get a skin or something small. To all of our disbelief, Sega was like, 'Actually, this is a great idea. Let me introduce you to the Sonic team, and let's start talking about doing a Sonic and Pico Park collab game together.'"

For Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka, seeing the beloved hedgehog and pals take on such a different type of gameplay was something of a shock, but Sega's previous big indie collaboration gave him confidence that it would work out.

"When I first saw the concept and the whole idea, I was kind of like, 'Is this gonna be a Sonic game?'" Iizuka tells me. "Like, 'I don't know how this collab is going to work.' But our experience working with the Sonic Mania team – they were also an indie developer, and they also had these ideas and kind of core beliefs that they wanted to execute on creatively."

While an eight-player co-op game was "something we on the Sonic Team side had never made before," that type of gameplay "was something that the team at Pico Park was really passionate about making." Iizuka did have at least one big suggestion for Tecopark, however: all the Sonic characters should have unique abilities. "It totally breaks the core game design of Pico Park," Iizuka admits, "but the team at Pico Park were really skilled at understanding the request, and then building around it."

Sonic madness meets Sonic Mania

Sega has now let indie developers make their own Sonic game multiple times, and it's not alone. We've gotten games like Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, The Rogue Prince of Persia, Cadence of Hyrule, and even the upcoming Castlevania: Belmont's Curse thanks to established publishers being open to allowing other developers to use their IP, and the results have largely been excellent. What's made it possible for these sorts of collaborations to happen in the modern era?

"I can't really speak for the other companies and maybe what they're thinking, but you know, from a Sega perspective, we do realize that making our big titles, it takes a lot of time, a lot of money," Iizuka explains. "It's a huge investment of, you know, the staff and the resources that we have, and then once you've invested all that time and energy into something, you really need to sell a lot of units in order to survive in the industry."

Indie developers, meanwhile, "have an idea, and they'll very quickly create that idea – that game experience – and then they'll continue moving forward and making more stuff. That's one thing that larger companies really can learn from the indie development scene – just how quickly they can take an idea, capture that, and put that into a game experience. It's really stimulating working with those indie developers." Iizuka believes this is a lesson Hollywood is already learning, and that AAA game studios should follow suit.

Partnering with indie studios also gives companies like Sega a chance to work with the very people whose love of video games was sparked by their characters. "I grew up in a household where we had a Super Famicom, but I was asking for a Mega Drive," Shimazu says. "My brother wanted a PlayStation, and I wanted to play Virtua Fighter. So I've always been that Sega fan at heart."

Of course, Shimazu was a Sonic fan, too, and has watched the character grow from a platformer protagonist to a multimedia mascot just like many of us have. "It was this really cool, unique character that I got to play with, and I really appreciated and enjoyed that time with the games," he says. "But when we look historically at what Sonic has been and where Sonic is going – Sonic's in movies, Sonic's in lots of different media. All these different ways of presenting Sonic to lots of people, I think, has been one of those ways to help Sonic survive."

Sonic's survival wasn't always assured. A decade ago, Sega had the character on the chopping block. But Iizuka thanks the fans for keeping the series alive even now, 35 years later – not to mention making sure that Sega stays on the right path.

"I'm sure you guys remember the Sonic 1 movie trailer that went out there. The fans really said, 'We don't like this, and we want things changed.' The teams listened to that, and they changed the design of Sonic for the movie. We're always constantly listening to the fans when we're thinking about the next game we want to make. Because the fans are there and they have been supporting us so much, we want to take the time – for the past 35 years – and really listen to what they want and deliver something that they're going to enjoy."

Gotta go fast to our list of the best Sonic games of all time.

The latest Mario Kart World Tour update is here, providing a list of changes and fixes for the Switch 2's signature racer. What's most exciting, however, is right at the top of the list, as there are two new routes you can zoom through in the Knockout Tour.

Nintendo has added two fresh rallies to the mode: Drill Rally and Boomerang Rally. The first takes you from Wario Shipyard through to the ever-present Bowser's Castle, and the second goes from Salty Salty Speedway right up to Whistlestop Summit. So, you're not getting any all-new tracks, but two fresh options to spice up the Knockout Tour experience.

A brief teaser shows the two of them in motion, and I'll always have a soft spot for the aesthetics of Bowser's Castle. All the lava permeating a huge, gothic castle, emblazoned by the master's face over and over? Pure heavy metal, I love it in each and every entry.

"You can select these if you have played one of the rallies in Knockout Tour," says Nintendo's post on the update. Even if you haven't touched this mode all that much, you're not far away from checking out either of these if you so choose.

Characters who have lower acceleration have been given a speed boost, as has the gliding speed of those on the roster who're a little faster on the road, though Nintendo doesn't explicitly say who is included in this wave of buffs. Another distinctly Nintendo addition is stickers in Photo Mode, just to make all your captures that much cuter and prettier. I try to stay away from these modes, because I become a little obsessed with them. Getting good angles is extremely satisfying!

Anyway, there's a plethora of bug fixes, including sorting out an issue where time trials would register the wrong time when you cross the finish line. I can only imagine the annoyance this one caused. The patch is available now.

Be sure to check out what's around the corner with our roundup of new games.

"This is life changing for our team," developer Little Legendary recently wrote on Twitter, and it makes perfect sense. The indie studio obliterated its Kickstarter goal for pretty Metroidvania SHADE Protocol in a single day.

Little Legendary wanted to hit its $240,000 Kickstarter stretch goal earlier this month after having already ground its base goal of $40,000 into invisible specks of dust. The developer was hoping to recruit Dark Souls singer Emi Evans, best known for her work as the main vocalist for the Nier series – and suddenly, it seemed like it could after donations flooded in with a spoonful of help from Evans herself, who shared her potential involvement with the game project on Twitter.

Ultimately, "We hit 150K+ wishlists, 10K followers on Steam, and surpassed $230K on Kickstarter all in the same day," said Little Legendary in a Twitter post earlier this month, "...and THEN Emi Evans, vocalist for NieR Automata and Dark Souls amongst many other games, shares that she's a stretch goal for our game." The studio exclaimed, "Don't wake me up please!"

As of writing, SHADE Protocol can comfortably add Evans to its cast. The game has $275,420 donations and counting, nearly seven times Little Legendary's original base goal. In fact, the music for SHADE Protocol – whose Steam page describes it as a fantasy where "music, code, and combat collide" – should now be able to feature both Evans and veteran Mega Man composer / stretch goal number three Matsumae Manami. SHADE Protocol's Kickstarter also confirms the game soundtrack will feature live musicians, who were part of stretch goal five, and the game will create an explorable biome devs are calling the Codesong, or goal seven, "the foundation of all reality, a place where music and code flow and dance together as one."

It's a good sign that Little Legendary is being so deliberate in choosing its music and the environments where it plays – it seems that blood-fortifying, adventurous music is integral to SHADE Protocol's story encouraging preservation of what's left of humanity in a technological collapse. In the game, layers will guide the black tea party dress-wearing android Zura through a lost civilization where there are at least many lovely pink trees. You'll use "Instruments" to defend yourself, which Little Legendary says in SHADE Protocol's Steam description are "powerful code-based weaponry inspired by music, each serving a unique role in battle and exploration."

It seems like SHADE Protocol could be a unique approach to what another developer might turn into another cyberpunk rhythm game, or another post-apocalypse. I'm eager for something new. After discovering its smash success Kickstarter, I'm hoping to experience SHADE Protocol for myself – and clearly, other people are, too.

These are the 25 best Metroidvania games you can already play in 2026.

Out of all the many speedy platformers out there starring Sega's blue blur, Takahashi Iizuka's favorite one is Sonic Adventure 2.

There are dozens upon dozens of Sonic the Hedgehog games out there, and Sonic Team's lead producer Takahashi Iizuka has been involved with several of them over the last three decades. But there's one game he feels was particularly memorable, and I'm not sure many series fans would disagree.

"I have fond memories of all of them, but if I had to pick one, it would be Sonic Adventure 2 from 2001," he says in an interview with Famitsu magazine (thanks, Genki!) "After finishing the previous game, Sonic Adventure, I took the staff with me to San Francisco to work on this game. While the previous project was a large-scale project involving over 100 people, development on Sonic Adventure 2 started with just 11 people."

"Just hearing this might make it sound like it was a tough development environment, but since we were a small team in a new location, I remember that we were all able to work together freely and enjoy the development while supporting each another both professionally and personally," Iizuka adds.

The head of Sonic Team thinks that smooth working environment also contributed to the game's quality because - surprise, surprise - people do better work when they're supported. Sonic Adventure 2 is now an absolute fan-favorite entry that's even inspired a few indie game love letters.

Sonic's 3D outing was so popular, in fact, it even provided the framework for the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie, something Iizuka was "really delighted" to see.

Thankfully, unlike many of the other best Sonic games of all time, Sonic Adventure 2 is pretty easily available on PC (Steam) and Xbox Series X|S consoles via backward compatibility.

On the topic of remakes that could potentially bring the beloved games to even more platforms, Iizuka recently said he would "love" to magically remake every Sonic game, but remakes would apparently take just as much time as developing an entirely new instalment.

Sonic fans couldn't wait for Sega's new alternate-reality game – until they spotted the AI training agreement

Decompilation projects continue to pay off with more and more native PC ports of classic games coming from fan developers. The Spyro fandom was already flying high with the announcement of a brand-new series entry earlier this month, and now the good times are continuing to roll with a PC port that promises to bring all sorts of modern bells and whistles to the OG PS1 classic.

I'll get the bad news out of the way first: this fanmade PC port is not yet available to the public. But according to lumilaura, a prodigious Spyro speedrunner who's been asked to put an early version of the port through its paces, a full release is coming "much sooner than we all think." As if to demonstrate how close that launch is, she's provided a minute of gameplay footage which you can see below, and it's looking sharp.

"You're not dreaming, this is Spyro 1 running natively on windows 11 with the brand new OpenPETE decomp + recomp hybrid by Amec/tyscorp," lumilaura explains. "60fps, true widescreen, no polygon wobble, perspective correct textures, the works."

While some fan projects along these lines have been marred by their use of AI-powered vibe coding, this one's being made with "no AI." Plus, the dev suggests that while the project only covers Spyro 1 for now, the two PS1 sequels could theoretically "be easily supported."

Of course, if you just want a modern-looking take on the original Spyro you could just dive into the Reignited Trilogy, but that's a fundamentally different experience to the actual OG. As lumilaura adds in a follow-up post, this port "runs 1:1 with console behind the scenes," right down to all the tricks and glitches that power the speedrun scene.

The devs behind the upcoming Spyro: A Realm Beyond credit the "loud and consistent" fans who bought 11 million copies of the remake with helping manifest the new game, and I'd say this kind of PC port only reinforces just how dedicated the Spyro fandom is. Now, after years of famine, they're finally getting the opportunity to feast.

Spyro: A Realm Beyond devs "hope that this is the first of many" new games in the series: "We want Spyro to live on for a long time."

Well, Sega's gone ahead and ruined Sonic's birthday party in a way only the worst Silicon Valley boyfriend would dare to: the publisher is letting it be an opportunity to train artificial intelligence.

Now the Sonic franchise's 35th anniversary feels a lot more gloomy. People were excited about the apparent alternate-reality game Sega had set up, in which players were meant to "recover" lost Chaos Emeralds during free events in Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, and New York. Participating either online or in-person could make you eligible to win prizes like a little enamel pin or a Leblon Delienne sculpture, but it would also require you to consent to being scraped and prodded for the sake of AI.

This fact is only revealed if you attempt to sign up for the Chaos Emeralds hunt on the game's official website and view its Terms of Service before plugging in your zip code, date of birth, and other personal information.

It turns out the Chaos hunt is being carried out "on behalf of SEGA via Community," a mass-texting tool that uses AI-generated messages. Giving the service your information means you "consent to our collection, use, and processing of your information [...] for the improvement, development, and training of our artificial intelligence (AI) models and tools."

More specifically, Community could use your data to "enhance our proprietary AI models," potentially make your data available to "third party providers," and possibly retain your data "as part of our AI model’s knowledge base," according to the platform's Terms of Service.

None of this sounds like the kind of 35th birthday blowout an anthropomorphic hedgehog like Sonic would want. Actually, Sega's Chaos hunt seems more aligned with Sonic villain Dr. Eggman's values, which generally involve deploying evil robots.

To that point, one popular reply to Sega on Twitter taunts, "Might as well change the main character to Eggman now cause it's clear how much you love bots."

"Ai data harvesting and decade old renders," says another defeated fan "What an anniversary.

But AI is sadly part of Sega's new normal. The developer is open about the fact that it thinks generative AI is "an optional support tool for developers," as company spokesperson recently said to Game Informer. It also seems to think of generative AI as a wonderful opportunity to kill a mood; Sega earned fans' animosity earlier this month when its Steam page for the upcoming Crazy Taxi: World Tour revealed it used "generative AI support tools during development."

To its very small credit, though, Sega is at least consistent in its tiptoeing around AI. The studio has been publicly sharing its medium-warm approach to the tech for months now, as company executives made it known in a translated 2025 investor call that Sega planned to "pursue efficiency improvements, such as leveraging AI," also noting that "we will proceed by carefully assess appropriate use cases, such as streamlining development processes."

Sega has seemingly stuck to that approach in using generative AI as a garnish, but not overwhelmingly. Maybe a blue guy who runs as fast as Sonic the Hedgehog could appreciate that kind of technological "streamlining"... but what's certain is that fans who are worried about Sega's ambiguous relationship to AI and buried partnerships with platforms like Community certainly do not.

Sonic lead says AAA studios can learn from indies in the same way the movie industry should take notes from Backrooms and Obsession.

Frequent Final Fantasy developer and Kingdom Hearts co-creator Tetsuya Nomura was actually inspired by a very different type of game when making the transition to three whole dimensions: Super Mario 64.

The iconic character designer and game director says as much in an interview with Famitsu magazine when talking about the games that have had the biggest impact on his career. (Thanks for the translation, Genki!)

"It differs from era to era, but the game that truly shaped my current guiding principle 'to be able to move freely in full 3D' is Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64," Nomura says.

Super Mario's very first 3D adventure actually came out a few short months before Final Fantasy 7 made the same transition on the PlayStation 1, but both games handled a new generation in totally different ways.

"At the time, the Final Fantasy game I was working on had also become 3D, but only the characters were 3D data, the backgrounds were made in 3D but rendered as a single image, so it was not yet possible to move around freely in 3D space," he explains. The PS1 Final Fantasies had players moving polygonal characters around pre-rendered, painterly backgrounds, usually from fixed camera angles – as opposed to Super Mario 64, which had a camera following the iconic plumber across entire worlds.

"I felt the sensation of running around freely, like Mario, was the thing that I wanted to create," Nomura notes.

Of course, that free-form movement and fully-realized levels are ideas that eventually showed up in Nomura's next project, Kingdom Hearts on the PlayStation 2, a game that still feels really unique in how it mixed sometimes-wonky action-platformer elements with traditional JRPG progression.

In Kingdom Hearts, you'd have to carefully swing between trees in a world themed after Tarzan or hop around rooftops in Agrabah from Aladdin, but that was in between battles where you'd fling out classic Final Fantasy spells and swing a bulky Keyblade like it was the Buster Sword. It's still a really unique mix even in its own franchise.

The Super Mario 64 inspiration is probably unsurprising, though. Nintendo's first proper foray into 3D platforming is one of the most impact games ever released, and countless games looked to it as the standard from then on.

Despite playing a key role in Final Fantasy 7, JRPG icon Tetsuya Nomura says "Kingdom Hearts has become my life's work."

Despite throwing shade at Nintendo ahead of its release, Sega has deemed Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds' sales to be below expectations.

In Sega Sammy's latest financial results the company singles out two of its titles that it deems to have "fallen short of expectation" when it comes to sales, despite good reviews for both. These titles are Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, which garnered Metacritic scores of 82 and 87 respectively when they were released last year.

Sega confirmed earlier this year (thanks, Nintendo Life) that Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds was still hovering around the previously announced one million copies sold mark, and given that Sonic x Shadow Generations the year prior had sold over three million, and Sonic Frontiers sold just under five million, Sega clearly had higher expectations for the project.

Last year was one of the biggest years for the kart racer genre to date – granted, it would've been huge with the launch of the first Mario Kart game in 11 years in the form of Mario Kart World alone. But Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds and Kirby Air Riders also released in 2025, meaning the typically niche genre was pretty crowded.

Ahead of launch, Sega threw a bit of shade at Nintendo with an ad making fun of "the open road," quite obviously in reference to Mario Kart World's open-world pivot and the prevalence of controversial intermission tracks in the game. Plus, the game's creative director Masaru Kobayakawa spoke about the Sonic Racing rewarding skill instead of luck, which also felt like a reference to Mario Kart.

According to Nintendo, as of March 31 this year, Mario Kart World had sold just under 15 million copies, and sure, it may have been helped along by the somewhat generous console bundle that arrived alongside the launch of the Switch 2, but Mario Kart always does well. However, the way more niche Kirby Air Riders is also seemingly out in front of Sonic Racing, at 1.87 million copies sold.

Personally, I had all three kart racers on my top 10 games of last year, so for me it was a three cakes situation, but I definitely didn't think it was the best time for Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds to release. But given CrossWorlds released on seven platforms, I can somewhat understand why Sega would be disappointed.

10 years ago, Sega said "we're done with Sonic," and it was up to Takashi Iizuka to save the series: "Sonic was really at a low point."

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The Sonic the Hedgehog 35th Anniversary has landed, as it's been 35 years since the first game launched on June 23 in the US way back in 1991. That means we'd had almost four decades spent on this planet with the blue blur, chilli dogs, cheesy quips, and the iconic Green Hill Zone, whose 16-bit music still remains in my head rent-free.

I don't want to linger on Sonic's age too much, as that'd mean coming to terms with my own old age. But the series' longevity means that plenty of the best toys out there are based on Sonic and friends, should you want to start collecting them. There's everything from official Squishmallow plushies featuring Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, to PEZ dispensers, game controllers, and cookbooks. An order up of Chili Dogs, anyone?

To help get you started, I've gathered together a Death Egg-sized lot of some of my favorite Sonic the Hedgehog collectibles out there today, including plenty of pieces I own myself. Everything I've included is officially licensed by SEGA, too, so you can feel assured that you won't find a faker. Y'know, unless you're looking for Shadow the Hedgehog merch in particular, of course.

Check out our round-up of the best Lego sets and the best Nintendo gifts for more radical video game toys and collectibles.

Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka reveals Sega was ready to give up on Sonic at the low point of its history.

Sonic has had many ups and downs throughout its 35-year history, and while the classic line of "Sonic had a rough transition to 3D" isn't exactly accurate, given how beloved the Adventure duo is, the mixed reception to Heroes, before the triple bill of Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Genesis, and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), led the series to a low point.

And while Sega did bring things back around with the beloved Sonic Colors and Generations, the series was right back in the bad books with the likes of Sonic Lost World, Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, and Sonic Forces.

And while Sonic has always had a dedicated fanbase, his reputation wasn't the best, so much so that Sega delisted sub-par Sonic releases in 2010, ironically just before the worst Sonic game ever made – Sonic Free Riders – was released.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Iizuka acknowledges "there's been a lot of ups and downs in our history," and recalls "There was even a time when Sega said, 'You know what? We don’t need you to make any more Sonic games. We’re good. We’re done with Sonic.'" He adds, "10 years ago, when I first moved to America, Sonic was really at a low point, and they [Sega] said, 'Iizuka-san, if you don’t go over to America and don’t start building this up and raising Sonic back up, Sonic is going to end, and we’re just going to be done with it.'"

10 years ago was 2016, which would place this moment as just over a year after the release of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, a game so disastrously buggy that it instantly became a meme for glitches like Knuckles' infinite flight. While the next 3D game in the series, Sonic Forces, was also slated, Sonic Mania, released a few months prior, is one of the most beloved Sonic games to date. Iizuka also thanks the fanbase for sticking with the series through those low points, saying, "It's really thanks to the fans that Sonic lives on.

Not to mention the Sonic Boom cartoon amassed a big fanbase, and of course, the movie series kicked off in 2020 – which Sonic voice actor Roger Craig Smith credits with launching "the notoriety of the character" into "a whole other stratosphere." So thankfully, Sonic seems to be back in a good place, even if Frontiers and Superstars aren't the most beloved games in the series.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 director calls it the "best Sonic movie yet" as filming officially wraps.

"OOF," I say out loud after wiping out trying to pull off a double backflip on my bike. Coincidentally, narrator dialogue says the same thing, adding insult to injury. That's OK though, because I'm a lazy tanuki with a big bouncy belly, and I hop back on my bike and rail-grind my way over to another ramp, this time using the sprint button and holding down jump to catch flight and give myself enough airtime to backflip twice and land safely with a satisfying flump. It's summertime. I'm applying for a job at the local yakitori restaurant. I'm delivering packages on a bike. I'm a freakin' tanuki. I'm playing Tanuki: Pon's Summer, and it really is Pon's summer.

I was sold on Tanuki: Pon's Summer within minutes after seeing its Steam page. Right behind black cats specifically, tanuki are my favorite animals. They're chubby little trash goblins, they hibernate by cuddling with other tanuki, and they're endemic to Japan, my favorite place in the world. You give that tanuki a bike and some sick BMX tricks, and my tail's a'wagging. You throw in grilled chicken yakitori, sushi, beer, and give that tanuki a job as a mail courier, and well, that is a video game I will very much want to play.

The new Tanuki: Pon's Summer demo released for this year's Steam Next Fest is fairly barebones, but what's on offer is so charming that I can't wait to play more after work. At its core, the game is all about cycling around town delivering packages to weirdos in effort to raise enough money to restore the town shrine before the Matsuri Festival. That gameplay loop is made infinitely more enjoyable thanks to the addition of a genuine, surprisingly in-depth trick system very similar to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. You can backflip, double backflip, do Superman moves, rail-grind, and rail-hop, and that's just what I can remember from my limited time with the demo.

Having played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 relatively recently, Tanuki: Pon's Summer is much simpler and more approachable by comparison. It helps that the cycling mechanics themselves are impressively smooth and intuitive, but the system itself is also a lot more forgiving. Like, you have to really beef it for the game to register your trick attempt as a fail and send you crashing to the ground. Most of the time, even if you land at a crooked angle against opposing momentum, the game will just autocorrect you and send you on your way. It makes rail-grinding and doing tricks something you idly do as you cycle between jobs rather than something you have to work to perfect, although maybe that'll change in the full game.

There's more – like, a lot more – to Pon's Summer than delivering packages, and you get a taste of some of it in the demo. Even as proudly strange as this game is, I was surprised to find myself tangling with a sumo wrestler at one point. I was equally surprised and delighted to find myself serving beer to patrons of a local izakaya. I was even surprised by just how cute and cozy Pon's homebase is, a little Hobbit-hole cluttered with trash and dimly lit by the changing hour and a retro TV and games console.

Everything from the level of detail in the food to the irresistible wobble with which Pon carries himself, is so innocently delightful. And I apologize for over-using that word, but it's very much intentional. I can't think of a better word to encapsulate what I felt playing Pon's Summer than delight, and so I will throw it around irresponsibly. In this increasingly cynical world, I think games like Pon's Summer will grow in demand in tandem, and although I've only played the demo, I'll be waiting impatiently for the full game to come out. And when it does, developer Denkiworks says demo progress will seamlessly transfer over, as it's essentially "the first arc of the game."

Here's a bunch more upcoming indie games to keep on your radar.

Sonic the Hedgehog actor Roger Craig Smith says the movies have sent the blue hedgehog's popularity to a whole different level.

Sonic games – as far as mainline entries in the series go – have been weirdly quiet this decade, with only Sonic Frontiers and a number of remakes, remasters, and spin-off titles to sustain it. But despite that, the series is bigger than ever thanks to the massively popular movie franchise that began in 2020 and is approaching its third sequel in 2027, with Sonic 3 being only the second video game movie to be Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes (Werewolves Within was the first, despite the game's lack of notoriety).

Speaking to GameSpot, Sonic's long-time voice actor Roger Craig Smith – who joined the series with 2010's Sonic Colors (although his voice debut as the character was at the UK's Alton Towers theme park) – was asked about where the franchise is at right now. "I really think we're just at an exciting time," Smith says, "I never would have thought that this many years later we'd be, I mean, as large of a brand as the entire thing has become sort of globally now."

Smith acknowledges that Sonic has always been popular with gamers, but "the fact that the movies have done so well, it's like, it really has sort of launched the notoriety of the character kind of into a whole other stratosphere."

Although, despite Tails actor Colleen O'Shaughnessey reprising her role for the films, Smith has mainly been the voice for the game series (albeit with some voice cameos in the likes of Wreck it Ralph, OK K.O., and being the voice of the character in the shockingly good Sonic Boom TV show).

As for the future of the game franchise, Smith says "I don't know where it goes from here," and explains, "as voice actors too, we're always like the last to sort of find out anything." Although he says this is "for good reason" as voice actors could potentially leak projects, as Devil May Cry's Daniel Southworth and Assassin's Creed Black Flag's Matt Ryan can attest to.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 director calls it the "best Sonic movie yet" as filming officially wraps.

Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka says he would love every Sonic game to be available on modern consoles, but thinks the effort involved would be better spent on new titles.

In case you weren't aware, there's a whole lot of Sonic games out there. Since 1991, there's been as many mainline console games as the entirety of Mario's mainline console and handheld games (that's with a six-year head start). But unlike Mario, where three of the New Super Mario Bros games and 3D Land are the extent of what you cannot play on the Switch consoles right now, there are a lot of Sonic Games that are simply unavailable on modern platforms.

And while some may be happy with not having the ability to play Sonic Heroes, Sonic 2006 or Sonic Lost World on modern consoles, there are absolute bangers like Sonic Adventure 2, the Sonic Advance trilogy and Rush duo that can't be played on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch (PC does have a few of them available still, however).

When asked by YouTube creator Jeremy Klinger which Sonic game he would personally choose to be remade for the franchise's 35th anniversary this year, Iizuka responded, "When we think about all the games in the 35 years that Sonic has been out there, I really want to be able to play all of those old games on the modern platforms." He continues, saying if he could "magically do it," Izuka would "want every single Sonic game ever put out there to be playable now on current hardware."

Unfortunately, however, "The cost that it would take to actually bring those games and have them not just be ported over, but actually be remade and be full experiences on that hardware" would be "about the same resource, money, or people's time and energy as it would to make a brand new title." Iizuka adds, "We're really focused more on making new experiences to surprise people."

Granted, I think many people would be happy with simple ports at this point. And with the GameCube on Nintendo Switch Online, we can easily get the Adventure games and Heroes on there. The saving grace, however, is that many older ports of these games are available on PC, and with a fan community as passionate as Sonic's, those have been updated into really good versions. Or in the case of Sonic Unleashed, a whole PC version was made by the fanbase, which is by far the best way to play the game.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 director calls it the "best Sonic movie yet" as filming officially wraps.

Sonic the Hedgehog producer Takashi Iizuka thinks big-budget game makers could learn a thing or two from indie developers in the same way that major movie studios should be taking notes from this summer's biggest surprise success stories, Backrooms and Obsession.

The Blue Blur's trading dizzyingly speedy platforming for co-op puzzles in Sonic Pico Park, an upcoming spin-off game revealed at Summer Game Fest made by the developers behind indie hit Pico Park, naturally.

But Sonic Pico Park is part of a growing trend as AAA publishers increasingly work with indies on some of their big franchises - Ubisoft's The Rogue Prince of Persia and Konami's Castlevania: Belmont's Curse come to mind. So when GamesRadar+ had a chance to sit down with Sonic Team's Iizuka, we had to ask him what makes collaborations with indie teams so attractive.

"I can't really speak for the other companies and maybe what they're thinking, but you know, from a Sega perspective, we do realize that making our big titles, it takes a lot of time, a lot of money," he says via a translator. "It's a huge investment of, you know, the staff and the resources that we have, and then once you've invested all that time and energy into something, you really need to sell a lot of units in order to survive in the industry."

According to Iizuka, indie developers can instead generate an idea and then "very quickly" execute it before "moving forward and making more stuff." He reckons that's a huge lesson larger companies like Sega could "learn from the indie development scene." Not to mention, it's "really stimulating working with those indie developers, because you get to feel that that smaller team energy and that quickness of working to get an idea into an experience."

The Sonic producer then likens the AAA game industry's problems to what the movie business is going through right now. The summer box office's biggest story so far is how Disney's Mandalorian and Grogu, an expensive Star Wars blockbuster, was pretty easily outperformed by two scrappy horror flicks made by 20-something-year-old directors.

"It's a little bit a different type of media, but the movie industry is kind of going through similar issues that we in the game industry are going [through]," Iizuka explains, pointing to how studios like Disney are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on bets that will maybe pay off "many, many years from now."

"But then you see movies like Backroom and [Obsession], these much smaller creative efforts that are still becoming these great successful hits, so I do see a parallel in the movie industry to what's kind of happening in the game industry with the amount of investment and the actual entertainment that people are consuming and enjoying," he concludes.

Backrooms director Kane Parsons is seemingly considering a Portal movie “with a lot of caution and a lot of curiosity”

Toys for Bob developers have explained why they returned to Spyro instead of tackling a certain other Microsoft platformer series.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Lou Studdert, associate creative director on Spyro: A Realm Beyond, and Paul Yan, studio head at Toys for Bob, were asked why the studio chose to return to the Spyro series for its collaboration with Microsoft. While the team has worked on the franchise before, many wondered if the previously announced collab would be a new Banjo-Kazooie or any other game franchise Microsoft owns (including Crash Bandicoot, which Toys for Bob led development of for its last two games).

"Honestly, Spyro has kind of a deep place in our studio's heart," Studdert explains, referencing work on the Skylanders franchise, as well as the Spyro Reignited Trilogy. He adds, "We've always admired that kind of small but mighty underdog story of the character that's taking on these overwhelming odds, you know, we see ourselves in that a little bit, and honestly, it just was a no-brainer."

Studdert adds that "since we made Reignited, we have had the hope to take him further," and that "we always wanted to return to the world of Spyro, to bring that character forward, and so time was right, and we left it to chance."

Meanwhile, Yan notes that the studio was a bit more confident with the idea of taking on Spyro. "Going independent was taking on massive, massive risk, right? It's taking a bet on ourselves," he says, adding: "We knew coming out of Reignited – that title sold over 11 million copies, so there's an audience that woke up to show up for that series."

"Every year, every gaming event we hear the fanbase show up, like, 'when is there going to be a new Spyro title?' even before we had even pitched this," Yan explains. This in turn helped the studio in pitching the new title. "When we came up to Xbox and said, listen, here's our plan, we said, 'look, there's a community, it's loud and consistent, they know what they want, you're here to make this game, what else do you need, let's get this thing going."

Yan adds, "I'll say that we love Spyro, love Banjo, love all these types of titles," while shouting out the recent resurgence of platformer icons through Rayman Legends Retold and Astro Bot. "We've been doing this all along. It's not a new thing that we're shifting to, but we want to carry that type of experience into the world." He explains: "We think that the world needs these types of experiences, and we want to make them."

Spyro: A Realm Beyond devs "hope that this is the first of many" new games in the series: "We want Spyro to live on for a long time."

Xbox's slate for the next year and beyond is looking bright after its big Xbox Games Showcase, with Spyro: A Realm Beyond being one of the highlights as the iconic purple dragon finally returns with a brand new game for the first time in 18 years. But what about another beloved 3D platformer that's been out of the spotlight for just as long?

Fans have been begging for a new Banjo-Kazooie game for almost two decades at this point, and obviously, Xbox is aware – back in 2023, the now-former Xbox boss Phil Spencer boss teased: "You've seen from our history that we haven't touched every franchise that people would love us to touch – Banjo fans, I hear you."

It may have been a while since that comment, but speaking to GamesRadar+, executive vice president and chief content officer at Xbox, Matt Booty, isn't giving an outright 'no' to the idea. Looking at Spyro's revival, we bring up Xbox's vault of iconic IP – Banjo-Kazooie included – and ask if Booty sees a future where other independent studios (like Spyro: A Realm Beyond's Toys for Bob) could work with the publisher on its legacy franchises.

"We're in the great position that we have our first-party studios, we have first-party publishing, who [get] to work with great partners, like Kojima [Productions], and we also have all of our great third-party partners from around the industry," Booty begins. "We've got ID@Xbox, which brings in so many great partners that are kind of on a different part of their game development journey. It's all of it. So, I think the answer is there are options to do all kinds of things, and we're certainly looking at those all the time."

It's a vague response – obviously, Booty was never going to suddenly confirm that a new Banjo-Kazooie game is in the works – but it offers some reassurance that Xbox is at least considering all the options it has available to it.

Hell, Fable went dormant for long enough – until the announcement of the new Fable, the last main, numbered entry came out in 2010. Even if you're counting all the spin-offs like the now-discontinued collectible card game Fable Fortune, it'll have still been nine years since the last game by the time the new entry launches in February 2027.

For now, only time will tell what the future holds. Xbox is undergoing changes right now under its new leadership, notably changing course from its multiplatform strategy to have more Xbox-exclusive games – at least, some of the time, so it's a period of evolution for the publisher.

Take a look at our roundup of everything announced at the Xbox Games Showcase 2026 to keep up with all the latest reveals.

During Summer Game Fest, the annual Xbox Games Showcase brought us some very cool reveals – including the long-awaited Spyro: A Realm Beyond.

The upcoming Spyro game from Activision and Toys for Bob is the first big mainline entry in nearly two decades, and it's just as brilliantly vibrant as its nostalgia-inducing predecessors. In the new trailer, we see everything from bright purples to glowing oranges, green grasses to blue skies – you name it. It feels like a childhood fever dream in the best way, and I have a feeling that the developers wanted it to. They certainly weren't shying away from colors, anyway.

In a new online post, the official Toys for Bob account puts it best: "The world needs more radically joyful, colorful games," asking fans if they agree. I absolutely would.

The devs' statement here lines up well with what they recently said in an interview posted on Xbox Wire, too, that A Realm Beyond is one of those much-needed games the world is calling for now, and that it'll be as whimsical as the old Spyro gems we know and love.

"We know first-hand that a big part of what makes a Spyro game really resonate is having a wide variety of colorful, whimsical spaces with activities, characters, and treasures that motivate you to explore every nook and cranny," studio head Paul Yan explained.

We do get a taste of these spaces in the trailer, and so far, and I'm personally impressed. It's like a modernized step back into the early 2000s, old PlayStation hues and all.

That's not to say that the new Spyro game won't be… well, new. Yan also admitted "the sense of discovery is absolutely core to this new adventure," which translates into some very exciting features – like free flight and such.

All in all, A Realm Beyond sounds like a blend of both familiar and fresh Spyro mechanics (and aesthetics, apparently). We'll get to witness it first-hand come its spring 2027 release date.

Fingers crossed that Spyro: A Realm Beyond delivers on all of its promising visuals, features, and more when it does finally launch. I'll be eagerly awaiting it, anyway.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

Dataminers have apparently discovered an update to the Nintendo Switch Online retro games library, and it looks like Nintendo may be planning a spiritual successor to one of the Wii U's crown jewels.

Despite being a standard thing in the industry for over two decades now (yes the Xbox 360 was 21 years ago, you're old), Nintendo has never dabbled into achievements. Some games have featured an in-game version of them, sure, but there has never been a console-wide system for it, with Shigeru Miyamoto saying all the way back in 2009 that "I'm not a big fan of using the carrots to motivate people to play. I want people to play because they enjoy playing and want to play more."

However, it looks like Nintendo may now be dabbling in a similar system, but rather than being strictly achievements, it instead feels like a spiritual successor to the fantastic NES Remix series. BlueSky user Luigiblood reportedly found the details while datamining the NES, SNES, and Game Boy Nintendo Classics apps. Rather than give you achievements for completing specific tasks in-games, you'll apparently select a challenge which will then plunge you into a given retro game to complete it.

Meanwhile user Spectralstar69 posted a look at the first batch of apparent challenges, which are all themed around Donkey Kong games. These don't tell you what the actual challenges are, but the cards have descriptions, like "Catch the Key" for Donkey Kong on Game Boy, and "High-Flying Mine Cart!" on the original Donkey Kong Country. Even Donkey Kong Jr. Math is getting in on it, with a challenge called "DK Accounting!"

Presumably we could find out more about this new challenge system in the Nintendo Direct later today, and as someone who is a big fan of the NES Remix games, I'd be excited to see Nintendo get back to introducing fun challenges to its retro titles.

Zelda and Star Fox remakes are fine, but former Nintendo staff say it needs "more than nostalgia."

Now that we know there is a Nintendo Direct tomorrow, the rumor mill is abuzz with suggestions on what will be announced. The big expectation everyone has is the reveal of a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake, but someone else might steal the show - Wario.

Even before this week's Direct was officially revealed, Nintendo leakers were already talking about what projects are due for announcements. On June 7, prevalent leaker noarmsandnolegs took to X (formerly Twitter) to post a gif of Wario and Link. This backs up previous leaks that indicated a new Wario Land title could be coming in 2027.

Noarmsandnolegs previously served as the main source on the Rayman Legends Retold and Spyro: A Realm Beyond leaks, both of which were later officially announced over the course of Summer Game Fest. Following their initial post, the leaker then made a more direct statement on the rumors, saying outright, "A new Wario game is coming. Wahahaha." They then elaborate, saying that they cannot confirm if it will be a new entry in the Wario Land series, though they point to the apparent uptick in Wario appearances lately. That includes Wario World on Nintendo Switch Online and a Wario Land track in Mario Kart World.

If it is not a new Wario Land game then the most likely announcement will be a new WarioWare title, assuming there's a Wario reveal coming at all. The last title in that series, WarioWare: Move It!, released in 2023. So it hasn't been that long in the grand scheme of things, even if I'd never say no to a new entry.

WarioWare: Move It is the Smooth Moves spiritual successor I've always wanted

Spyro: A Realm Beyond is the iconic purple dragon's first all-new game in 18 years, but the devs at Toys for Bob don't want to stop here, with studio head Paul Yan expressing hopes that "this is the first of many" to come.

Speaking in an interview with GamesRadar+ at Summer Game Fest 2026, Yan says he's "proud of the team," who have been "paying attention and listening to the community."

He sees that A Realm Beyond could have fallen into two extremes: "If you stick too much to nostalgia, then you basically just rehash, and it's like, 'why did we do that?'" he suggests, saying that rehashing things would mean "there's no future that kind of gets out there."

Meanwhile, "on the other extreme, you innovate too much, and all of a sudden you don't even recognize what the character is and what the series is." With that in mind, Yan says, "that tension is so real" when it came to making A Realm Beyond.

After all, he continues, "our goal is that we want Spyro to live on for a long time. We want not just one new game, but many new games. We hope that this is the first of many. So we're going to have to take some risks. We're going to have to move into new territory, and our goal is to make sure that that evolution is always speaking to something that is authentic and reverential to building on the foundation of what is truly Spyro, and then we'll take some leaps." This will be "uncomfortable," he adds, "but we wanna go there."

It certainly sounds promising – the last all-new Spyro game launched in 2008, and while we had 2018's Reignited Trilogy (also made by Toys for Bob) to tide us over, Spyro fans have been ravenous for something fresh for years.

Thankfully, there's not too much longer to wait for Spyro: A Realm Beyond – it's set to launch in Spring 2027 on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and Switch 2, and hopefully we won't have another 18-year wait for the next one after that.

Spyro: A Realm Beyond lets everyone's favorite dragon fly freely, which is "such a significant addition" devs have "built a whole world around that promise."

Tonight's hotly anticipated Summer Game Fest event was the annual Xbox Games Showcase, and boy, did it bring us some cool reveals – including one of Spyro: A Realm Beyond, a title we've waited nearly two decades for.

The last proper Spyro entry landed a whopping 18 years ago with The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, but Activision and Toys for Bob are finally back with a new entry in the beloved series... one that sounds like it's shaping up to be the biggest we've ever seen – free-flying and all.

Speaking in a new interview with Xbox itself, Toys for Bob studio head Paul Yan seems to tease as much, first admitting that A Realm Beyond is just what the nostalgia doctor ordered.

Admitting that it'll be just as colorful and whimsical as predecessors, he says, "In Spyro: A Realm Beyond, the sense of discovery is absolutely core to this new adventure."

This whole "sense of discovery" that the lead mentions here is made all the better by one stand-out fact: you can fly freely about the skies as Spyro in A Realm Beyond. Yes, freely... and that's a lot for both the developers and fans.

As Yan describes, "For now, I can tell you that our biggest ambition in Spyro: A Realm Beyond is to give the player the freedom and fantasy of dragon flight – to be able to take the skies at a moment's notice and make interesting and active decisions to flow through the spaces as you charge on the ground and now soar through the air."

In fact, "This is such a significant addition to the game" that "we've built a whole world around that promise." That's... exciting, to say the least. It almost feels like the jump that the Super Mario series saw in Odyssey – but Spyro. I am so here for that.

If you're looking forward to soaring the skies as everyone's favorite little purple dragon like I am, it'll be available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S – and, of course, Xbox Game Pass, too.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

Almost 18 full years since the last all-new Spyro the Dragon game, everyone's favorite purple dragon is back with Spyro: A Realm Beyond, launching early next year.

Announced during today's Xbox Games Showcase, Spyro: A Realm Beyond is an all-new Spyro adventure from Toys for Bob. While we got the Reignited Trilogy in 2018, the last totally new game we got was 2008's The Legend of Spyro: The Dawn of the Dragon, so to say it's been a while would be an understatement. You can check out the trailer below.

As for what we can expect from A Realm Beyond, the trailer's video description reveals that Spyro finds himself stranded (presumably, in a realm beyond), but soon finds himself taking on "a vicious invading force known as the Scavs." It's called "Spyro's boldest evolution yet," which sounds very promising.

Rumors of a new Spyro game have been circulating for some time now – in 2024, it was rumored that Toys for Bob had signed a deal with Microsoft, shortly after splitting away from Activision. It didn't take long for these rumors to be confirmed – a couple of months later, Toys for Bob announced that it was "partnering with Xbox to publish our next new game," which was "still very early in development" at the time.

The studio didn't confirm what game it was working on, though given that the announcement was accompanied by the Toys for Bob and Xbox logos on a purple background, many fans were hopeful that Spyro was set to return. Now then, here we are – A Realm Beyond is set to launch in spring 2027 on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Switch 2, and PC.

While you're here, be sure to take a look at our Xbox Games Showcase 2026 live coverage to keep up with all the other announcements from today's stream.

Cuphead is back. Nearly four years after the hand-drawn platformer released it's final expansion, The Delicious Last Course, developer Studio MDHR is back for more. During Summer Game Fest 2026 MDHR announced not one but two new projects.

The first project is a true successor to the original Cuphead. It will be hand-animated and, "take Cuphead and friends on a fresh, exciting adventure." That's according to a puppet news anchor that stars in the trailer MDHR showed off at Summer Game Fest. The project is still in early stages, so we didn't get a look at any gameplay, but the puppet news anchor promises the team will reveal more when the time is right.

The second announcement is still Cuphead...with a twist. Mighty Cuphead Adventure comes from a small team within the studio and is billed as something completely different. It is, "a love letter to the era that brought us into world of video games." A brief trailer shows off an 8-bit platformer that, while staring familiar faces, has an an entirely new visual style compared to the hand-drawn aesthetic of Cuphead. The brief trailer makes it clear Studio MDHR's hallmark platforming gameplay will remain intact.

Mighty Cuphead Adventure will be available on modern platforms but for true retro fans Studio MDHR has something special planned. In a a blog post, MDHR reveals that a physical cartridge for the Sega Master System will also be available for purchase. In the words of Studio MDHR, "This is not just a retro-style game: it’s a game built from the ground up with all the unique limitations of a 1980s video game studio."

"Cuphead ships in Japan with amazing art from a Final Fantasy icon, and fans are losing it"

Rayman Legends Retold devs say it's a mere coincidence that 13 years later, Rayman Legends Retold is launching around the same time as a new GTA and Assassin's Creed Black Flag.

It's 2013, Rayman Legends was released a few weeks before the new GTA game, and now it's 2026, and Rayman Legends Retold is about to release a few weeks before the new GTA game. But that's not all for Ubisoft's 2013 lineup, as – despite being one of the AAA companies that typically doesn't remake games all that much – the developer is also remaking Assassin's Creed Black Flag. But the fact that all of these games released in 2013 are returning again is a mere coincidence.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Rayman Legends Retold brand producer Loïc Gounon explained, "I think it's a - I would not say random - but I think it's a bit of an accident that [both] remakes collided a bit the same year." However, while Assassin's Creed "also has new games in development that have been teased or announced" for Rayman, it's a bit of a different story, as "our context, as we explained, is more relaunching the brand."

Gounon continues, "I think what's funny in terms of story is actually that Black Flag and Legends released the same year [2013], so that's another accident." He then acknowledges that the situation is "A bit like GTA. We released the same month as GTA 5, 13 years ago, and now we release nearly the same month as GTA 6."

Thankfully, Rayman Legends is releasing much further out than GTA this time, so hopefully it won't be quite as big of a sales flop this time around, especially since it sounds like Retold's success is how we get a new 3D Rayman game.

A Rayman 1 remake is basically "mission impossible" for Ubisoft, Legends Retold producer says.

One Rayman lead at Ubisoft says that a new 3D Rayman is hopefully going to happen eventually, although it's not confirmed to be the next game in the series.

Speaking to GamesRadar+, Rayman Legends Retold brand producer Loïc Gounon explains that when Rayman Origins released, there was a trend of "smaller games, more agile 2D, multiplayer" with the likes of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Donkey Kong Country Returns.

"I think what we're seeing now with Astro Bot, with new 3D platformers, there is a rebirth of the golden age of PS2-ish platformers," he explains, adding: "If you look back at the franchise, it's basically Rayman 2, Rayman 3 that were in that era.

"We think it might be the time to come back with more adventurous 3D Rayman games," Gounon continues. "We are starting with that project [Rayman Legends Retold], that's what we are aiming for, in a way, and what we want for Rayman, and we think it's a good match, both for the players and the market."

When asked if the thing the team sees next for Rayman is a return to the fully 3D style found in earlier games, Gounon says, "that's the plan! That will be the plan if everything goes well!" He adds, "We are setting up a new team. We're resetting the foundation for the franchise. That's why also being – even though we are a bit more than a remake – being partially a remake, there are some solid grounds where we felt it was a good way to bring back the franchise."

So yes, Rayman Legends is a confusing choice for a game to remake, but as a means to bring back the series for a true 3D Rayman 4 – that we've been waiting for since the mid 2000's when the real Rayman 4 (which Gounon also worked on) became Rayman Raving Rabbids – I'm more than happy to support it.

A Rayman 1 remake is basically "mission impossible" for Ubisoft, Legends Retold producer says.

Rayman Legends Retold brand producer Loic Gounon has explained why Legends is the game getting remade instead of the original Rayman.

So, Rayman Legends Retold has been announced, and naturally, I'm sure everyone is wondering 'why is Ubisoft remaking the last game in the series that is available on every platform and still very much holds up?'

"Obviously it's a question we've had in most of the interviews," Gounon explains at a recent preview event attended by GamesRadar+, noting that "it's sort of the richest one in a way." He says that Legends has "all of Rayman," with the likes of Globox, the Teensies, Murfy, and Barbara joining the adventure, and that if Ubisoft "wanted to go [to the] next [game], we need to have all of Rayman."

The game most in need of a remake is arguably Rayman, the PS1 classic which had a re-release earlier this year with Rayman 30th Anniversary Edition, "I think it's been tried," Gounon explains. He adds, "I think it's a game that's really difficult to remake, and I think, in a way, the answer to remaking Rayman 1 is Rayman Origins, and we went through those arguments internally."

Gounon adds, "Rayman Origins is sort of a reboot of Rayman 1. There are some of the characters, some of the places." In original Rayman, he says, it's "super slow" and "very old school game design," but "if you start changing that, the metrics, the sense of speed, it's another game. It's Origins"

He continues, "I would call it near a mission impossible to remake Rayman 1, honestly. That's why, when we decided to celebrate the 30th anniversary, we felt that keeping Rayman 1 as intact as it was, going for a bit more of a documentary approach, how the franchise was born, was a better angle."

Of course, that doesn't rule out remakes for Rayman 2 or 3, so keep the hopium going.

Rayman Legends may be one of the best games of 2013, and if its remake is as good as that, we'll be looking at one of the best new games of 2026 too.